As I wrote in the Huffington Post recently, we here at YouTube believe that great educators can come from all walks of life, and we want to see more teachers - in the broadest sense of the word - turn YouTube into their global classroom. The demand on YouTube for educational content - from math to science to history and beyond - continues to grow. We did some math of our own recently, and found that views of educational content DOUBLED in the last year. We also found that nearly 80% of the views for this content came from outside the U.S., suggesting that our vision for a global classroom might be becoming a reality.

So for all you knowledge-hungry people around the world, today we’re welcoming the first six new educational channels coming to YouTube as part of the new original content initiative we announced last year (more to come later this year). Without further ado, and In alphabetical order … (what else?) ….Crash CourseA weekly dose of world history, from one half of the vlogbrothers, John Green. The first episode tackles the agricultural revolution, and over the year, the show will tackle the entire 15,000 years of human civilization. Insider tip: the show is written in conjunction with John’s high school history teacher!

Deep Sky VideosBack in the 1700s, astronomer Charles Messier was hunting for comets … and kept getting frustrated by objects that were NOT comets … so he made a list of these non-comet objects, which went on to become one of the most famous lists of cosmic objects in science. This channel is a quest by Brady Haran to make videos about all 110 so-called Messier Objects … starting with M1 (side note: Brady’s collaborator on another YouTube channel called periodicvideos is Professor Martyn Poliakoff, who was today awarded the Ron Nyholm Award for his role in chemistry education - congratulations!)

Intelligent ChannelThis new channel hosts luminaries from education, art, and culture as they discuss the most topical subjects of the day. The hosts of the shows are actor/comedian Richard Belzer (from Homicide and Law & Order, andPaul Holdengraber of ‘Live from the New York Public Library’ fame. “Richard Belzer’s Conversation” will feature interviews with actors, comedians, directors, musicians, and writers. “The Paul Holdengräber Show will engage award-winning writers and artists about their work and passions.

NumberphileNumberphile is a channel for people who love numbers and want to find out the stories behind them, also from Brady Haran. Numberphile’s very first video appeared on an auspicious date (the last binary date of a generation) - 11.11.11 - and of course,the video was all about the number 11 - and barcodes. The channel has gone on to feature videos about 98, 15, 31 … teaching us about grafting numbers and hexadecimals and Mersenne Primes in the process.

SciShowFrom the other vlogbrother, Hank, SciShow aims to teach scientific concepts in an easy-to-understand way, covering everything from particle physics to DNA. The first episode is about "non-newtonian fluids," and the second episode focuses on theHiggs Boson particle and includes interviews with the director general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

The Spangler EffectYouTube was only five months old when Steve Spangler first taught people how to turn a bottle of Diet Coke and a roll of Mentos into an exploding geyser. Science videos are among the most popular viral videos on YouTube, and this channel will set out to make science more approachable and a whole lot more fun.